Time goes so fast…the lead season has already started again this weekend with the European Youth Cup in Edinburgh. Remembering the freezing conditions of the past competitions here, I was surprised by the lovely warm weather on Friday. My first qualification route was in the big overhang, and looked nice. I was quite nervous while climbing it, but was still able to top out. The 2nd one on the vertical wall looked much more difficult. Several girls had already fallen while clipping the last quickdraw. It was almost impossible because of the rope pull, but Salomé Romain (FRA) found a method which worked well and topped out. Ana Tiripa explained me the moves of the route and told me not to worry about it. But still I was a bit nervous about the tricky part in the middle. While climbing I was happy that I passed this point with a very bad hold and I arrived at the little roof. I had a look at my watch and saw 5 minutes. So I started climbing faster which in the end was quite good because I did the moves without hesitating. I was really happy to top out. After the qualifications I was tied with Salomé, Julia and Jessica.

In total there were 4 Belgian finalists: Nicolas Collin, Loïc Timmermans, Celine Cuypers and me. In the isolation on Saturday I did not feel as usual. My throat was aching a bit and while warming up I felt quite hot and shaky. But I laid everything in God’s hands and decided not to give up. Our final route was at the right side of the large wall. There were a lot of small holds in the beginning and pinchers in the overhang. I started my route quite confidently and it went really well. The moves in the overhang were a bit strange and difficult, but I was encouraged by the cheers of my team-mates and other climbers. To my surprise I arrived at the top hold and clipped the quickdraw! I was so thankful that in the end I had been able to climb well. Julia Chanourdie (FRA) and Jessica Pilz (AUT) also topped out. We had done the same in the qualifications so again… the time. 🙂 Julia was 1st, I ended up 2nd and Jessica was 3rd.

Celine climbed really well. At a certain point she decided not to clip a quickdraw and continued. She did the same as the winner, but became 2nd because of not clipping the quickdraw. Well done! Nicolas ended up 5th in male youth B. Loïc made a great performance by climbing very high in his final route and winning in male Juniors.

Celine (silver), Loïc (gold) and me (silver) (Photo: Denis Timmermans)

Nice picture for CAC! (www.climbersagainstcancer.org)